ACW Bits and Bobs

This week has seen yet another ACW Union regiment step off the painting table...this time a converted fair haired Union colonel leads the regiment forward with his kepi impaled on his sword.

No sooner than it had marched off, fresh Confederate recruits have marched on to make an appearance sometime next week.

Also completed this week is this very nice Perry Miniatures plastic farm house kit. This has been sitting in an unfinished state on the painting table for a couple of months...pre-COVID19 in fact. It came with the Battle in a Box set that I bought ages ago and was assembled in late February. But when I sprayed it black I screwed up the spraying and over sprayed it so that some of the detail became obscured. I was so disappointed that I just left it. When I finally did get around to painting the weatherboards white it didn’t look right and even the application of that secret potion “Aly’s Brown Liquid” couldn’t fix it. So it continued to sit on the painting table, unfinished.

Then just this week, when I was becoming a little bored with painting ACW troops, I had another go. First I painted the roof, starting with a dark grey which was then highlighted with a lighter grey. Normally I would apply some GW Nuln Oil over this, but I was running really low on this tone and no local retailer seemed to have any stock. Instead I created a wash that was a 50:50 blend of GW Seraphim Sepia and GW Darkenhof Nightshade which gave quite an interesting dark brownish green that brought out the edges of the slate really well.

I then decided to try this new blend on the weatherboards of the house and repainted one section in pure white and then applied the wash. I liked the result and went back and repainted all the white area then washed it. I could then go back with the same wash and pick out the edges of the weatherboards and window frames where I had over sprayed. A quick touch up to the porch and the brick chimney and it as done.

To add a little character I placed two chairs either side of a small barrel (I was tempted to stand a bottle on the barrel, but had nothing to hand) and added a larger barrel to the wall at the end of the porch. I am quite pleased with the way I as able to recover what I had written off as a disaster into what is now a very functional structure. I haven’t quite decided if I am going to base this at all yet, but having been looking through photographs on the web of various Civil War buildings, I quite like the idea of making up a base of a farmstead like some of these Gettysburg houses

The Lester House (Meade’s HQ)

Trostle’s house and barn

The Bryan house

The idea of creating a special piece is quite appealing.

MORE ACW units!

My ACW odyssey continues. This week sees a Union regiment added...

 
...and a rather well dressed Virginia regiment that I based on the VMI cadets from the Battle of Newmarket that inspired me when I watched the movie “Field of Lost Shoes”.

Several more ACW units are in the pile.

Can’t See the Wood for the Trees (2)

Following on from my earlier post I have been making trees to get a break from painting ACW figures.

Readers may recall that in the experimental tree I used a trunk made from Sculpey and I was quite happy with that. But I had a whole bunch of bare trees - sans foliage - that I made way back in 2005 when I put on a refight of Pea Ridge. That battle was fought in the  winter, so I built a collection of winter trees, some from Woodlands Scenics but the most I scratch built - all trunks and bare branches.  players in that game will remember it clearly because when moving troops in the woods they were likely to be stabbed by one of the trees. These have been sitting in the garage since that time and I thought why couldn’t these be repurposed by adding foliage using the same method described earlier.

This was the cause of another experiment where I took the bare tree, that was a wire armature....

Added the coconut fibre foliage shape and coated it with Woodlands Scenics coarse turf, conifer.

I liked the effect, but it needed some tone. I thought first of applying a lighter green turf, but chose instead to lightly spay the foliage with a bright yellow. Spraying this from a distance provided just enough of a highlight and has the added advantage of helping to secure the foliage.

So with this second experiment completed I set about adding foliage to another seven bare trunks.

The same trunks with their coconut matting foliage attached, ready to be sprayed black.

Then with the flock applied

And finally with a light spray of bright yellow.

Soon I had a wood, or at least a copse.

Finally, just in case regular readers were concerned that I was ignoring the ACW project, here is a standard sized Union cavalry regiment and a small Confederate one.

Now that the number of units in this project is stacking I think I need to organise a game to see if the vignette basing idea is going to work, before rebasing becomes too much if a chore.

Union Infantry Regiment

This weekend I have a quick post to show this week’s effort - a regiment of Union infantry advancing at the right shoulder shift.

And surprise, surprise, more ACW regiments are to come!

Revolutionary War French - the 63e Demi Brigade

After a hiatus of nine months I restarted this Revolutionary French project in February, but due to a purchasing error I was short six grenadier figures (having order the advancing pose when I needed march attack to match the rest of the battalions).

The figures in the correct pose arrived over the weekend and made their way immediately to the painting table. I have to admit it was nice to have something different to American Civil War figures.

With these completed I have now based all three battalions of this Demi Brigade.

The First Battalion

The Second Battalion

The Third Battalion

The entire Demi Brigade

Also completed over the weekend was yet another ACW Union infantry regiment.

The Ongoing Civil War

It has been a busy week. Last Wednesday was the first day back after my forced holiday and straight into redundancy discussions. 

Saturday was ANZAC Day (our Remembrance Day) and with all the social distancing regulations all remembrance services were cancelled and instead we were asked to stand in silence at our gates at dawn. In out little street of maybe 20 houses I think every household participated. We stood there in silence at 06:00 on a cold morning as the sun rose while from the local Returned Serviceman’s Association hall, maybe a mile and a half away, the notes of the Last Post echoed eerily between the houses. It was a strange yet moving moment.

Between the redundancy talks and ANZAC day I have managed to push through three more ACW units.  First is a Confederate gun set. I really like these plastic gun sets. The variety of poses you can get by mixing and matching arms and bodies is superb and the resulting sets look so natural.

Next is a Confederate infantry unit

And finally a Union regiment from the original Perry plastic set. While this set is excellent, the later sets have just become better and better. I am a huge fan.

Still More ACW Figures

With nothing else in the lead/plastic pile to paint here are two more ACW units.

A Confederate regiment...

And a Union regiment...

And then there is a repeat of a previous post, well not quite a repeat, but these two Argentine battalions for the Great Paraguayan War had to be rebased because their cardboard bases curled up severely. They now stand anchored to some more sturdy plastic bases.

I really want the lockdown to end soon so that more stock (with a bit more variety) can be ordered.